I am fast born along the stream
of time, John Macduff, Evening Incense, 1856. It is appointed
unto all once to die, and after death, the judgment, Hebrews
9, 27. O my Father, You are daily loading
me with Your benefits, giving me unnumbered causes for gratitude
and thankfulness. No earthly friend could have
loved and cared for me like You. O may the life You are thus preserving
by Your unceasing bounty be unreservedly dedicated to Your praise. O my
father, keep me mindful that I am soon to be done with this
fleeting world, that I am fast borne along the stream of time
to the ocean of endless futurity. May I be living in a constant
state of preparedness for that solemn hour when small and great
shall stand before you and the book shall be opened. Train me
for eternity, let me not be frittering away these fleeting but precious
moments. Impress on me the solemn conviction
that, as men live, so do men die, that as death leaves me,
so judgment will find me. And as judgment finds me, so
eternity will keep me. Oh, let death leave me falling
asleep in Jesus, united to Him by a living faith, so that judgment
may find me seated at His right hand, listening to the joyous
welcome. Come, you who are blessed by
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. Blessed Jesus, all my hope of
a glorious resurrection centers in you. I look to you as the
strong tower which cannot be shaken. I flee anew to the holy
sanctuary of your covenant love. Sheltered there, amid a dissolving
earth and burning worlds, I shall be able joyfully to utter the
challenge, Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? Keep
me from all negligence and unwatchfulness. Trim my flickering lamp. Let
me live with your judgment throne in view. May I ever remember
that I must soon give an account of myself to you, the infallible
searcher of all hearts. May I feel that all the talents
and means which you have given me are trusts to be laid out
for you. When you come to demand a reckoning,
may I not be among the number of those who have hidden their
talent in the earth, and have the cheerless retrospect of a
misspent life. May every providential voice
sound loud in my ears, arise and depart, for this is not your
rest, because it is defiled, it is ruined beyond all remedy. Make me more heavenly-minded,
give me more of a pilgrim attitude and a pilgrim spirit, May I ever
feel that my true home is above, and that I am here on earth but
a wayfarer and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. May I attain,
as I advance nearer to heaven, the blessed habit of a holy life,
declaring plainly that I am seeking a better country. I delight often
to anticipate that happy time, when I shall suffer no more and
sin no more.